A mother accused of murdering her three-year-old son reportedly told police she hated him because he looked like his father, a man she wished was dead.

The woman said she had thought about killing her son because she “loved him, but just didn’t connect with him”.

“There was a part of me that hated him because he looked like his father,” the NSW Supreme Court yesterday heard she told police in late 2014 following her son’s death.

“He is his father’s child and I wanted to kill his father.”

When Timothy, whose real identity has been suppressed, was found unresponsive and in cardiac arrest in his mother’s home in NSW on August 3, 2014, police were told he had been knocked over by the family dogs, Chaos and Havoc, and hit his head at a nearby park.

Timothy was flown to hospital but never regained consciousness. He died three days later.

An autopsy found that Timothy had sustained “multiple blunt-force injuries to his face and lower limbs”, as well as “scab-covered abrasions on the temple area with significant bruising … and ­serious injury to the spinal cord”.

These extensive injuries sparked a police investigation and his mother and stepfather are now facing trial over his murder. In opening remarks, the crown ­alleged Timothy’s mother and stepfather had formed a “joint criminal enterprise” while they were Timothy’s carers for seven weeks from June 2014 “with the intention to assault Timothy and cause either death or grievous bodily harm”.

In the weeks following Timothy’s death, his mother told police she had assaulted her son many times.

The crown told the court she confessed to once slamming Timothy’s head between a sliding wardrobe door because she “wished he would go to sleep”.

The crown argues that Timothy’s stepfather, who also admitted assaulting the child, is equally responsible for his death because he knew his partner was thinking about murder and “must have seen the possibility of his mother committing a deliberate act to harm or cause death”.

The stepfather would allegedly wrench open Timothy’s mouth with a wooden spoon, leaving his mouth cut and bleeding, and also place a ball in Timothy’s mouth and secure it with duct tape, the court heard.

The defence barrister for Timothy’s mother argued that, ­although she made admissions to police about inflicting some injuries, those injuries were not related to the cause of death.